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 PRIMIANUS

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PRIMICERIUS

i.e., a cleric, whose profession required him to recite the Office and to know the Psalms by heart. Further the day-book of John Dome (O.Kford Hist. Soc, 18S8), bookseller in Oxford in 1520, preserves many entries of the sale of books called ''primarium pro pueris", with indications which make it certain that they con- tained the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, and though none of these now survive, some later re- formed examples are in existence of the "Primer — moste necessary for the educacyon of Children" (1538), which contain the A. B. C. together with a modified office. When, therefore, we read in Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale" (1380) of the primer used by the "htel clergeon seven years of age" —

"This litel child, his litel book lerninge. As he sat in the scole at his prj'mer", there can be no doubt that the book was none other than the Primer here described. Indeed, the religious character of such elementary manuals persisted for long centuries afterward and Dr. Johnson, the lexicog- rapher, as late as 1773, still defined a primer as "a small prayer-book in which children are taught to read".

Early Printed Primers. — A very large number of editions of the Primer came from the press before Henrj' VIII threw off his allegiance to the pope. Such books containing the Little Office of the Blessed Vir- gin and the Vigili;e Mortuorum with miscellaneous private devotions were common enough everywhere throughout Europe and were generally known as "Hors". But the English name, the name commonly used when these books were spoken of in English, was "Primer". Though Caxion himself is known to have printed four editions, and there, are probably more of his that have perished, while his successors multiplied editions rapidly, the English printers were unequal to supply the demand. A vast number were produced "secundum usum Sarum" by the presses of Paris, Rouen, and cl.sewhere, many of them exceedingly beautiful in their typography and ornamentation, and a considerable number printed on vellum. Besides the constant elements already specified, these books commonly contain some other minor offices, e.g., that of the Passion, that of the Angels, etc., and a vast number of commemorations of individual saints. The beginnings of the four Gospels are also often found with the Athanasian and other creeds, and prayers for Confession and Communion. An almost invariable adjunct, either in Latin or English, was the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget and known as "the fifteen O's", and there were often devotions of a more fantastical kind which claimed to have been enriched by extravagant grants of indulgence, mostly quite unauthentic. Perhaps no better idea can be given of the miscellaneous contents, some Latin, some English, of many of the larger primers than by making an extract from the index of one of Wynkyn de Worde's quarto editions. Thus:

A prayer made upon Ave Maria.

Gaude virgo mater.

De profundis for all crj'sten soules.

A prayer to oure lady and saynt John the evan-

gelyst: O intemerata. A prayer to our lady; Sancta Maria. Another devout prayer to our lady: Obsecro. To our lady: Sancta Maria regina. To our lady: Stella celi extirpavit. Prayers to the Sacrament at the leavacion: Ave

verum. A prayer to the frinite; sancta trinitas unus

deus, with two other prayers, Deus qui super-

bis, Deus qui liberasti. Domine Jesu Christ e qui me creasti. Domine Jesu Christe qui solus. Two iirayers with two coUectes to the thre

Kynges of Coleyn.

Rex Jaspar, rex Melchior, and Trium reguin trinum munus.

The XV OOS of the passion of our Lorde in latyn.

Prayers to the pj-te of our lorde: Adoro te do- mine.

A prayer to our lord crucj'fyed: Precor te aman- tissime.

Another to his V woimdes: O pie crucifixe.

The prayer of sa^mt Bemardj-n: O bone Jesu, with an antheme and a collecte.

O rex gloriose.

To the crosse: Santifica me.

To thy proper Aungell: O sancte angele. Post Refornmiion Primers. — So strong was the hold which the Primer had taken upon the afTections of Englishmen that after the breach ^nth Rome various imitations, still bearing the name of Primer and framed upon the same general hues, were put for%vard with more or less of ecclesiastical approval by ]\Iar- shall and Bishop Hilsey, while in 1545 appeared "the Royal Primer", which was published in the name of Henry VIII himself, and was to supersede all others. Other substitutes, still further modified in the direc- tion of the reformed doctrine now in favour, were pub- lished in the reign of Edward VI. For the most part these books were entirely in English and when untler Queen Mary the old form of Primer was restored, several editions then produced, though thoroughly Catholic in their contents, were printed in English as well as in Latin. L'nder Elizabeth the Protestant sub.stitutes for the Primer returned, but that printed in 1559 was still called "the Primer set forth at large with many godly and devoute Prayers" and it in- cluded a form of "Office" divided info seven hours, with the "seven psalms", the litany (much modified), and "the Dirige" (see "Private Prayers", Parker Society, 1851). Meanwhile the CathoHcs had to be content with such ancient copies of the Marian or earlier editions which they would secrete, or with the few copies of the Roman Horop printed entirely in Latin which could be smuggled in from abroad. The first Catholic Primer of penal times seems to have been that edited by Richard Verstegan (Ant- werp, 1599). It adhered to the old conception of the Primer by making the Office of Our Blessed Lady the most conspicuous feature of the whole, but a great deal of new matter was introduced into the miscella- neous devotions, and in the subsequent editions printed in many of the cities to which Catholics resorted upon the continent, e.g., Douai, St. Omers, Rouen, etc., a great deal of innovation was tolerated. Of really old English devotions the "Je.sus Psalter", which we know from John Dome's day-book to have been printed and sold separately before 1520, was one of the features most relished and most consist- ently retained. The edition of 1706 seems to have been much improved as regards the translations of the h\'mns, and of some of these John Dryden is be- lieved to have been the author. The whole number of Catholic editions of the Primer known to have been printed under that name, either in England or abroad since Elizabeth, amounts to over forty.

Maskell, Monumenta Ritualia EcdesicB Anglicancs, III C2nd ed.. Oxford, 1SS2) ; Littleh.^les, The Prymer or Prayer-Book of Ihe Lay people, two parts (London. 1891-2); Idem, The Prymer, edited for the Earlv Enelish Text Society and including an intro- duction bv Bishop (London, 1S96-7); Hoskins, Horce Beata MaruT Virginisi, or the Sarum and York Primers and Kindred Books, a list and description of English Horse and Primers (Lon- don, 1901); Bennett in Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology (Lon- don. 1907), s. V. Primers: THtJRSTON, The Mediaral Primer in The Month (February, 1911); Gillow, Letters on ■'Our Old English Prayer-books" in The Tablet (December, 1SS4, and Januarj-, 1885).

Herbert Thurston. Primianus. See Don.4tists.

Primicerius (etymologically pritnus in cera, sc. in lahiiln cirttlit. the first in a list of a cUiss of officials), a term applied in later Roman times to the head of anj' administration — thus "primicerius notariorum",